I Am Not Jessica Chen(45)

My heart was beating very fast. I tried not to look too eager. “Oh, you don’t have to—”

He snatched the sweater back and draped it over his own shoulders. “Okay, then.”

I stared at him for a solid beat, my whole face hot, but then he suddenly grinned at me with quick, unnerving charm.

“Kidding, of course,” he said, and this time he didn’t just hold the sweater out but stepped forward until I could see the water glistening on his lashes like teardrops. Then he fastened the sweater’s sleeves around my neck so that it covered me like a cloak. His eyes turned gentle, his lips wet from the rain. I stared up at him, overwhelmed by his nearness, his scent, by how we had stood together like this a thousand times before but each time it felt different. New. Like we were on the edge of something dangerous.

“Do you always have to tease me?” I grumbled, tearing my gaze away. “You couldn’t just be nice?”

The rain fell harder, drowning out the rest of the world.

“It’s hard to resist,” he said, and he sounded honest. “I don’t know why I do it, really. It’s only with you.”

I swallowed. My throat felt raw, and I didn’t understand what he meant, only that I couldn’t bear it if it all ended here, if I went home without anything happening, without touching him.

“Maybe it’s because you don’t like me,” I said, seized by a terrible boldness, my heart racing ahead of itself. “Because you hate me.”

His brows drew together. “No,” he said firmly, despite his confusion. “I could never hate you.”

“Really?”

“I swear it.”

“Not even if I did this?” And before I could lose my nerve, before I could think about why this was a horrible idea, I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him closer, leaving only a hair’s breadth of distance between us. I watched him breathe, or struggle to, his chest rising and falling erratically, eyes wide, lips parted, half his face cast in the silver dappled shadow of the petals overhead. I had never kissed a boy before, yet now it seemed so simple. Just one movement, and I’d have him, the way I wanted.

He was staring at my mouth too, like the same thought had occurred to him. But he didn’t close the distance. Didn’t lean in the way I hoped. Before our lips could meet, he twisted his head away from me.

All the chill in the air seemed to flood into my lungs.

I blinked at him, speechless, choking on my own humiliation.

“We shouldn’t,” he whispered, his voice strained. “We can’t.”

“I don’t understand.” There was no time to polish my words, make them less embarrassing. I simply said what I thought.

“Jenna . . .”

“You don’t . . . want me?” The tears were coming fast now, stinging the back of my eyes and my throat. I stepped back, away from him and out of the shelter, letting the rain pelt my skin. “Is it because I’m—” But I couldn’t think of any good reason, other than who I was. Jenna Chen. Always the second one, the afterthought, the girl not good enough for anybody. Why had I imagined things would be different? Why did I even still believe in anything? “Why? Why not?”

A low exhale. “It’s not like that.”

“Like what? You don’t even care,” I said, and by now my self-defense mechanisms were kicking in, my hurt hardening into pure blistering rage. “You never care about anything, damn it. Do you think it makes you superior, somehow, always keeping yourself apart from everyone? You could have stopped this. You should have—I mean, you knew, didn’t you? On some level?”

“What, that you liked me?”

My cheeks felt scalded. Somehow it was a thousand times worse hearing him say it out loud, in that calm, matter-of-fact voice. “Not anymore,” I said, unsure who I was trying to convince. “From now on, I hate you, Aaron. I seriously—I hate you so much.” The rain was a miracle, in a way; it mingled with my tears, until it was impossible to tell one from the other. My whole face was wet. “I’m going home.”

“I can walk you back,” he said, taking one cautious step toward me, like I was a bird that might fly away. “Let me—”

I spun around, wiped my cheeks roughly with my sleeves. “Stop it. I’m not talking to you.” I could hear how childish I sounded, how foolish, but I didn’t care. I closed my eyes in the violent downpour, and there was a sharp pain in my chest, a jagged bone set wrong, and I felt so awfully small, like anything in the world could eat me alive.

One week later, he was gone.





Ten




As the weeks pass, I grow into Jessica’s life.

It’s like moving from a one-bedroom flat into a mansion. After the first few days of wandering in a daze around your own hallways, tossing and turning on the king-sized mattress, getting up in the middle of the night and hitting your head while fumbling around for the bathroom door, you adjust. You settle in. You don’t notice the scent of the magnolias first thing in the morning anymore. You can turn off the night-light with your eyes closed. You know to avoid the creaky step at the top of the stairs and twist the kitchen tap harder to the right.

But I’m still slightly disoriented when Celine calls me on Saturday.

“Why haven’t you been answering any of my texts?” she demands the second I pick up.